Fake Employees On LinkedIn And What To Do About It

Does your company page have phantom or fake employees?

Unfortunately, it is very easy, intentionally or unintentionally, to become a fake employee on LinkedIn.

Currently, there is no validation process and company page admins do not have the ability to remove fake or incorrectly listed employees.This means that an individual can easily associate themselves with any company page, deliberately or in error. See the example below.

Fig 1. Some fake employees are easier to spot than others

Why is this a problem?

There are several issues, first of all, damage to your brand. A potential customer may visit your company page to check out the credentials of your employees. Fake or wrongly linked profiles can undermine the company's credibility and may result in lost business.

This is particularly the case for small and medium-sized businesses that do not have the name recognition of bigger brands.

Secondly. there is an issue in relation to recruitment. Although an employer will check out an immediate previous employer they may not check out older employments on a person's profile. A devious candidate could add in fictional employments with highly credible organisations.

Then of course there are security concerns. Someone listed as a current employee on LinkedIn has easier access to and instant credibility with other employees of that organisation - a situation that could easily be exploited for dishonest purposes.

Could it be an innocent error?

Yes, that is quite possible.

In most cases where an employee is wrongly listed against a company on LinkedIn, it is a mistake. The person has simply selected the wrong name from the drop-down menu when they added the role. This is an easy mistake to make especially if the business has a common name.

For example, one of my clients, a marketing agency, had 30 employees but 350 were listed on LinkedIn. In this instance, the company used the opportunity of a rebranding to create a new company page with a new name to solve the problem. I have seen other examples where one person businesses have multiple employees on their company page, often from different countries,

Another source of "fake|" employees is where someone leaves and doesn't immediately update their profile. It is understandable of course in the current employment environment that some people may be tempted to delay making changes until they find a new position.

In these cases, a gentle reminder from the previous employer is normally the quickest way to achieve correction.

LinkedIn's remedy

Currently, company page admins do not have the ability to delete or hide a fake or incorrectly listed employee. The only recourse is to file a formal complaint to LinkedIn using the Notice of Inaccurate Profile Information form which is then forwarded to the Trust and Safety team for review.

This is a tedious, slow, and opaque process.

There are 96 people at LinkedIn with "Trust and Safety" in their job title. There are 50 million company pages and 706 million members.

What is the solution?

There is no doubt that this is a very widespread problem and one which can have negative consequences for both large and small businesses.

LinkedIn seems reluctant to tackle the issue. I am not entirely sure why this should be. The obvious solution seems to be to give the company page creators/admins the role of policing their own page and at the very least the ability to hide if not remove incorrect listings.

In the meantime, I recommend that page admins regularly check who is listed as an employee on your company page and act quickly to report any that are incorrect.

Am I missing something here? Please add your thoughts and suggestions in the comments. Have you had problems with fake employee listings? Please share your experience.

UPDATE APRIL 2022

LinkedIn is rolling out an employee verification update which will involve new employees being sent a verification code to the company email address.

This is a welcome move and will certainly help to combat some incorrect listings however, this only applies to business with more than 10 LinkedIn members and it doesn't apply to past positions.

Company page admins still need the ability to hide or remove incorrect listings imo.

More about Greg

Greg Cooper ?is a LinkedIn specialist and a Volunteer Mentor for the Prince's Trust based in Bristol, UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing. For over twenty years Greg ran an award-winning direct marketing agency working with leading technology companies like IBM, SAP, and Siemens.?

The Prince's Trust ?works with young people, providing free training to help them build confidence, develop their skills, and start a career. Greg is involved in mentoring young people who want to run their own businesses.